REDLANDS – Pamela Ianniccari was watching the evening news when she learned Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had ordered that state workers be paid the federal minimum wage until the state passes a budget.

“My husband was watching it with me and he looks at me and says `We’re not going to make it, are we?”‘ Ianniccari said.

The 27-year veteran of the Redlands Department of Motor Vehicles is one of 200,000 state employees affected by the wage cut to $7.25 an hour until a state budget passes the Legislature.

The Moreno Valley resident’s husband is disabled. Her son has cystic fibrosis.

The pay deferral would put her home in jeopardy, she said.

“I would lose my house,” Ianniccari said. “I only have six years left to pay it off, and I would lose it. I have no idea (what I will do).”

State Controller John Chiang initially refused to comply with the order, but on Friday, the state’s Third District Court of Appeals ruled he must.

In Redlands, roughly 200 people will be affected by the order. There are 159 nonmanagement state employees in the city, said Jim Herron Zamora, media liaison for the Service Employees International Union, Local 1000, which represents all nonmanagement employees throughout the state, except for those working for a legislator.

“For me to go down to $7.25 an hour, it’s going to be devastating,” said Redlands resident Trina James, who has worked at the Redlands DMV for five years. “I’m a single parent. I’m carrying the load for all three of us. I might end up being homeless, my children and I.”

James said it is the job of the state’s elected officials to balance the budget, not hers.

Whether or not people agree with how the state operates, she still has bills to pay and must put food on the table, she said. She said legislators don’t understand the plight of lower-level workers.

“When you have the comfort of a six-figure income, you can’t really feel the stress of the normal people,” James said. “I feel, in order for them to identify with the people, they need to live like the people and then maybe they could understand the frustration.”

The minimum wage order does not apply to all of the state’s 250,000 employees. About 37,000, including California Highway Patrol officers, are represented by unions that negotiated new contracts recently.

Salaried managers will have their pay cut to $455 per week, and, because minimum wage laws do not apply to state doctors and lawyers, these employees will receive no pay until legislators and the governor can agree on a budget.

It was not clear after the ruling whether Chiang would appeal the ruling or ignore it and pay employees their full wages.

Two years ago, Chiang refused to abide by a similar order and was sued by Schwarzenegger, which led to Friday’s ruling. Chiang maintains that the order is illegal.

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